The Quality not Luxury Gap
Jun. 17th, 2006 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleDJing went sort of OK last night - venue was almost like some shebeen or illegal dive, understairs in a secret style door under the pub. Although we were told to finish by 10pm (I was told 11pm) we eventually were allowed to DJ til 2am - problem since I'd taken only enough MP3 tunes for 2-3 hours, and didn't have the CD deck linked up.
First set went well - went for more mellow bootlegs, hip house, house and more listeny tunes as it was obvious not many people were going to dance, but I get em going to Cookie Crew. Problem was the staff from the venue kept coming over and physically turning me down. Even though I have no monitor to hear within the booth what's being played...grrr.
Az (Paige's brother, Paige is an old friend and ex-work colleague, and Indy whose Birthday party it was is a work collegue who saw me DJing at Uprising many moons ago) alternated with me, and played more IDM stuff mixed with 80's which went down well, I went on again and for an hour or so it just didn't work - was playing dancey Telex bootlegs and silly drum and bass mixes - got talked over - nope.
Threw in some rave stuff - not really.
Sadly there was no monitor or phones so I couldn't hear if I was overloading, initially too loud, then too quiet...I literally had to go onto the dancefloor to hear if it was too much!
I gave in after an hour with the cred-yet-fun dancey bootleg or IDM stuff - even Since you've been Gahan, Black Metal Tarantula, my Electric Eye bootleg and the electro stuff had bombed, and then put on Japanese Boy by Aneka closely followed by Rhythm is Gonna Get you by Miami Sound Machine - my emergency cheese choices. Full floor.
Thing is, this is partly why I'm probably going to stop DJing at the end of this year - unless you get a specialist crowd in, even the bootlegs won't always work on a non-bootleg crowd, and you end up playing 80's cheese. Cheese I particularly like, but it gets boring. And I find it stressful anyway. It's not that I'm like 'no-one understands my reggaeton meet shoplifting-gabba-grime MAAAAAAN!' but that I've been fucked around many times recently by promoters (and in this case the venue) and can see that I'd end up playing music I hated, or not the music I want to play, to get a 'good' crowd reaction. Meh. And I freely admit I'm not a DJ, I don't have those skills, it's painfully obvious when I play I don't have the 'feel'.
Do you learn that? How?
I just feel a little, well deflated. Was good to have John there, but he heard very little of my set since due to venue aggro (the early last minute time change) I'd actually stopped just before he arrived, and he stayed for the start of mine but was gone during that as it was too noisy for him. I don't think I'll hire that venue - well the Embassy Bar in Essex Road, Islington can fuck right off.
Was pround of playing Breathe Don't Stop (QTip vs Jackson) then intercutting it at exactly the right point with Usha Uthup's Chhupke Kaun Aya. I had One Two Cha Cha on standby also, as well as Shirley Ellis' great tonguetwister 'ever see a diver kiss his wife while the bubbles bounce about above the water' which is great, and you'll hear that on RC soon enough.
I'm actually thinking that my last gig is going to be Bootie. Out on a high, eh?
Early set:
Crazy Times - team9 vs gnarls barkley vs prince
My new Crazy boot
Stereolab - French Disko
Lionel Vinyl - Doctor on the Train (Goldfrapp vs Timelords)
Rah Band - The Crunch
Suzi Quatro - Glycerine Queen (not sure if I played this in warmup or during the set, worked well tho)
Space - Magic Fly (ditto)
ccc - Pink Night (Pink vs Frankie Valli)
Pilchard - Clapstero - I had a northern soul moment
Breathe Don't Stop - QTip vs Jackson
Usha Uthup - Chhupke Kaun Aya
Bomb the Bass - Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct 13)
Cylob - cut the midrange, drop the bass
Beatmasters featuring The Cookie Crew - Rok da House
Telex - Moscow Diskow (English 12'' version)
MC Tunes - Tunes Splits The Atom
Churchill - Hear Missy Work It (Chad jackson vs Missy)
The cookie crew - Got the Keep on
Later
Earlybird - Handel vs Missy (for John, didn't hear it though)
Lumpy - Bring The Humanoid
Silvah Bullet - 20 Seconds To Comply (Final Conflict Mix)
Supercollider - Black Metal Tarantula
My Electric Eye one
TLC vs Queens of the Stoneage (Asnivor Remix) - The Lost Art
QOTSA - Feel Good Hit of the Summer
Jimmi Jammes - Trippin' Up! (Fatboy Slim vs Beatles)
team9 - In Eleanor's Head (QOTSA vs Beatles)
? My juicebox boot ?
my red hot milkshake (missy vs Squarepusher)
blo up - laughable toxic bob (Britney vs Aphex)
Squarepusher - Come on my selector
Bong-Ra - My Cock is an Aardvaark
Instamatic - LFO Can't Turn Around (LFO vs Farley Jackmaster Funk)
DJ Earworm - Since U Been Gone
at this point I said fuck art (the apparently IDM/jungle crowd weren't into it, even though they requested jungle they didn't dance to it) let's dance, I was really pissed off...so did a DJNoNo silly set
Ottawan - D.I.S.C.O.
Apeboy - Enya vs Prodigy
DJNoNo - Supercalibreakz (Shy FX vs Julie Andrews)
DJNoNo - Chitty Chitty Gang Bang (Pendulum vs Julie Andrews & c)
Phil n Dog - Gay Muppet Bar
Pilchard - Maccamuppet (macarena / doors / muppets)
Who Boys Fun & Bass Pt 3 (beach Bots dnb)
Altern8 - Infiltrate 202
Elektric Cowboy - Paris Head (Was Not Was vs Mylo)
fuck it let's see if 80's / mobile wedding disco does it - bingo. I bet they'd not admit to dancing to this in the morning tho...
Aneka - Japanese Boy
Gloria Estefan and the MSM - Rhythm is Gonna Get You
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Rozalla - Everybody's Free [To Feel Good]
Reflex - The Politics of Dancing
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Sesame's Treet
Prodigy - Everybody in the Place
Pendulum - Slam
Then Az went on for a few hours, played later before I left:
Fudgetools - Freak (LFO vs Jimmy Somerville) and played Breathe Don't Stop again - went down well.
Then totally killed the dancfloor playing ABBA (even though it's a great boot) - a request! Ignore requests kids!
GHP - Abba vs Killing Moon - this kills dancefloors. Stone dead. Despite using Voulez Vous.
Don loves you - Don't cross teh Streams!!!! - (ghostbusters/LRD boot) and what has been a 'surefire' hit until now, ditto.
I legged it after that
First set went well - went for more mellow bootlegs, hip house, house and more listeny tunes as it was obvious not many people were going to dance, but I get em going to Cookie Crew. Problem was the staff from the venue kept coming over and physically turning me down. Even though I have no monitor to hear within the booth what's being played...grrr.
Az (Paige's brother, Paige is an old friend and ex-work colleague, and Indy whose Birthday party it was is a work collegue who saw me DJing at Uprising many moons ago) alternated with me, and played more IDM stuff mixed with 80's which went down well, I went on again and for an hour or so it just didn't work - was playing dancey Telex bootlegs and silly drum and bass mixes - got talked over - nope.
Threw in some rave stuff - not really.
Sadly there was no monitor or phones so I couldn't hear if I was overloading, initially too loud, then too quiet...I literally had to go onto the dancefloor to hear if it was too much!
I gave in after an hour with the cred-yet-fun dancey bootleg or IDM stuff - even Since you've been Gahan, Black Metal Tarantula, my Electric Eye bootleg and the electro stuff had bombed, and then put on Japanese Boy by Aneka closely followed by Rhythm is Gonna Get you by Miami Sound Machine - my emergency cheese choices. Full floor.
Thing is, this is partly why I'm probably going to stop DJing at the end of this year - unless you get a specialist crowd in, even the bootlegs won't always work on a non-bootleg crowd, and you end up playing 80's cheese. Cheese I particularly like, but it gets boring. And I find it stressful anyway. It's not that I'm like 'no-one understands my reggaeton meet shoplifting-gabba-grime MAAAAAAN!' but that I've been fucked around many times recently by promoters (and in this case the venue) and can see that I'd end up playing music I hated, or not the music I want to play, to get a 'good' crowd reaction. Meh. And I freely admit I'm not a DJ, I don't have those skills, it's painfully obvious when I play I don't have the 'feel'.
Do you learn that? How?
I just feel a little, well deflated. Was good to have John there, but he heard very little of my set since due to venue aggro (the early last minute time change) I'd actually stopped just before he arrived, and he stayed for the start of mine but was gone during that as it was too noisy for him. I don't think I'll hire that venue - well the Embassy Bar in Essex Road, Islington can fuck right off.
Was pround of playing Breathe Don't Stop (QTip vs Jackson) then intercutting it at exactly the right point with Usha Uthup's Chhupke Kaun Aya. I had One Two Cha Cha on standby also, as well as Shirley Ellis' great tonguetwister 'ever see a diver kiss his wife while the bubbles bounce about above the water' which is great, and you'll hear that on RC soon enough.
I'm actually thinking that my last gig is going to be Bootie. Out on a high, eh?
Early set:
Crazy Times - team9 vs gnarls barkley vs prince
My new Crazy boot
Stereolab - French Disko
Lionel Vinyl - Doctor on the Train (Goldfrapp vs Timelords)
Rah Band - The Crunch
Suzi Quatro - Glycerine Queen (not sure if I played this in warmup or during the set, worked well tho)
Space - Magic Fly (ditto)
ccc - Pink Night (Pink vs Frankie Valli)
Pilchard - Clapstero - I had a northern soul moment
Breathe Don't Stop - QTip vs Jackson
Usha Uthup - Chhupke Kaun Aya
Bomb the Bass - Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct 13)
Cylob - cut the midrange, drop the bass
Beatmasters featuring The Cookie Crew - Rok da House
Telex - Moscow Diskow (English 12'' version)
MC Tunes - Tunes Splits The Atom
Churchill - Hear Missy Work It (Chad jackson vs Missy)
The cookie crew - Got the Keep on
Later
Earlybird - Handel vs Missy (for John, didn't hear it though)
Lumpy - Bring The Humanoid
Silvah Bullet - 20 Seconds To Comply (Final Conflict Mix)
Supercollider - Black Metal Tarantula
My Electric Eye one
TLC vs Queens of the Stoneage (Asnivor Remix) - The Lost Art
QOTSA - Feel Good Hit of the Summer
Jimmi Jammes - Trippin' Up! (Fatboy Slim vs Beatles)
team9 - In Eleanor's Head (QOTSA vs Beatles)
? My juicebox boot ?
my red hot milkshake (missy vs Squarepusher)
blo up - laughable toxic bob (Britney vs Aphex)
Squarepusher - Come on my selector
Bong-Ra - My Cock is an Aardvaark
Instamatic - LFO Can't Turn Around (LFO vs Farley Jackmaster Funk)
DJ Earworm - Since U Been Gone
at this point I said fuck art (the apparently IDM/jungle crowd weren't into it, even though they requested jungle they didn't dance to it) let's dance, I was really pissed off...so did a DJNoNo silly set
Ottawan - D.I.S.C.O.
Apeboy - Enya vs Prodigy
DJNoNo - Supercalibreakz (Shy FX vs Julie Andrews)
DJNoNo - Chitty Chitty Gang Bang (Pendulum vs Julie Andrews & c)
Phil n Dog - Gay Muppet Bar
Pilchard - Maccamuppet (macarena / doors / muppets)
Who Boys Fun & Bass Pt 3 (beach Bots dnb)
Altern8 - Infiltrate 202
Elektric Cowboy - Paris Head (Was Not Was vs Mylo)
fuck it let's see if 80's / mobile wedding disco does it - bingo. I bet they'd not admit to dancing to this in the morning tho...
Aneka - Japanese Boy
Gloria Estefan and the MSM - Rhythm is Gonna Get You
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Rozalla - Everybody's Free [To Feel Good]
Reflex - The Politics of Dancing
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Sesame's Treet
Prodigy - Everybody in the Place
Pendulum - Slam
Then Az went on for a few hours, played later before I left:
Fudgetools - Freak (LFO vs Jimmy Somerville) and played Breathe Don't Stop again - went down well.
Then totally killed the dancfloor playing ABBA (even though it's a great boot) - a request! Ignore requests kids!
GHP - Abba vs Killing Moon - this kills dancefloors. Stone dead. Despite using Voulez Vous.
Don loves you - Don't cross teh Streams!!!! - (ghostbusters/LRD boot) and what has been a 'surefire' hit until now, ditto.
I legged it after that
